Live Thread: Cavs @ Warriors, NBA Finals Game 2
2016-06-05Flash poll: Is the big NBA game tonight bigger than the game you considered the biggest game prior to this big game?
— Cavs Win Title Now (@IGOHARDNOW) June 5, 2016
That’s right, True Believers. The biggest Cavs game of the season is here, and it’s even bigger than the last biggest game. Many consider tonight’s win a “must” if the Cavs have a shot at winning the whole shebang. According to Oddshark, NBA teams are 16-257 all-time after trailing 0-2 in a best-of-seven series. Only two of 56 squads have prevailed since 2009. So unless the Cavs want to climb out of a really big hole , they need to play much better tonight (though I’m wearing my “Rise Up!” 2007 Playoffs T-Shirt to prove it is possible). There has been a mountain of content dedicated to what the Cavs did wrong, and what Warriors did right in Game 1, but to me, Game 1 was all about the Cavs’ playing poorly, more than it was about the Warriors playing fantastically.
Here are things Cleveland must do better.
-    The Cavs need to roll! Someone must consistently put LeBron as the roll man, and he must roll, and not just pivot into a high post. Below, LeBron ignores the wide open space by the basket in order to settle for a mismatch. He must slip the pick! He or TT has a layup or JR has a three if he does. This is a part of an overall trend of moving on offense. Or as Ben Werth said to me in an email, “Why can’t LeBron just roll? For the love of my departing sanity. What a frickin waste of talent. Always settling for some dumb mismatch. This team has the talent but is stupid. Someone has to go to the rim on every play. Please..”
2. Channing Frye must play and the Cavs must shoot open shots. Here, Delly passes up a wide open triple to repost LeBron. If Delly doesn’t have confidence in his shot, I don’t know if I want to see him playing. The Cavs best playoff lineup has been:LeBron, Frye, JR, Shump, and Delly. That lineup barely played Thursday. It must play tonight, and the boys must let fly. LeBron gets doubled, pitches to Delly, who instead of being a ready shooter, reposts to LeBron despite there being at least 10 feet between he and Iguodala. Result? 14-foot clanker.
3. Consider staying big (and I don’t mean LeBron at the four).
https://twitter.com/Jon_Roser/status/738855153260847104
4. Play Channing Frye!
5. Everone must close out shooters, and must get to Livingston’s body more quickly.
If they do these they’ll be just fine.
We just cannot stay focused for more than 3 minutes at a time. That’s just not gonna cut it against the Warriors. Maybe against Detroit, maybe against Atlanta, more difficult against Toronto, but certainly not against the Warriors. This year’s championship was lost when Klay Thompson made 11 threes on Game 6 of the Thunder series.
Yep. It was pretty clear to anyone who wasn’t blind about the Warriors…
Anyone other than RJ contributing enough to this effort? Anyone?
I know no one had surrendered. But does anyone on the team completely believe they can do a 180 turn starting game 3? Man this just crushes me..
Kyrie doesn’t pass to Mozgov when he has Barbosa on him. Now, no one cares.
I hate everything.
Just go home Cavs…
Per Stein, Love experienced dizziness in 3rd…great
Kyrie straight up a** tonight.
Agreed. So why is he playing heavy minutes?
I understand riding with the player(s) for them to turn the tables, but a great coach must be able to balance that with his rotations and the needs on the game. Ty Lue isn’t doing well on that regard.
Can we still trade him for CJ? Cuz I’d do that…
Get the starters out Lue u …
Looking forward to Cols explaining exactly how Cavs defense is better against the Dubs than OKC…should be enlightening…
Get the starters out Lue…it is embarrassing
If only OKC was able to close out Game 6….
This team probably wouldn’t beat OKC playing iso like this.
I hope of the integrity of this blog, whoever writes the recap eviscerates everyone on the Cavs, sans RJ, leave no stone un turned…this was a pathetic two game stretch of a team that does not look like they want to win and are clearly intimidated…see what happens Wed
Hey Delly missed again for the 120th time
STILL better than Irving. You can get out of a shooting slump. Can’t cure lazy and entitled.
^ Favorite quote of the night
When OKC lost game 6, it was over. LOB trophy should have just been handed out then.
So who gets canned first, Lue or Grif? And do they get canned before or after Love is shipped out?
Kyrie needs shipped out long before Love.
Yes. Please. For the love of god yes.
The only way to defend this Warriors team is to take the challenge individually and live with the results.
This just sucks. Not fun. If I could be emotionally attached to any other team right now, I would be.
Contrast last year’s effort at Oracle (and maybe coaching) with this. Two overtime games and one win vs two very embarrassing efforts. Yes GS is better, but we have regressed farther.
GSW really makes you pay for having players that are not two-way players.
Correction: GSW really makes you pay for having players that don’t give a sh*t
Are Delly and Frye injured? Wtf?
The Cavs being unable to ever win a championship with LeBron is the most Cavs thing ever.
most Cleveland thing ever
W. Curry not having played well at all we r getting embarrassed… Where is TT’s rebounding..toughness. Lebron playing like it is 10 yrs ago.. jr doing his June thing – no show. Irving Love both just aren’t good enough…
finals match is an over matched clown show.
At least we are making difficult for them to pick a Finals MVP. Everybody is playing well.
My favorite comment of the night…
hope the Cavs can take one game?! boy if Cavs get swept here…Lebron is the Wilt Chamberlain of this generation
Our 3’s has abandoned us so far, only 4 tonight (Warriors at 12)
JVG: “It’s fun to play basketball like that, when the ball’s moving and everyone is searching out the best possible shot.”
In contrast to the Cavs…
They won’t win a game in this series unless they completely change their mentality on the offensive end. Maybe they just don’t have any plays. Maybe they just have no idea how to run plays. Maybe none of them have any idea to how to cut, backdoor, set offball screens…I just don’t know. Whatever it is they have to stop playing like a 90s iso team and start playing like the warriors with purposeful off ball movement and screens and when they see an open cutter they need to give the ball up immediately.
LeBron’s one made 3 pointer will now justify the next 8 attempts he makes
Ball movement. Suffocating defense. LIVE WITH THAT!! I don’t f*cking care if they lack the skill. Those 2 things are just pure heart, effort and trust. What’s hindering you guys for doing that? Come on?!?!
The cavs need an offensive guru to come in and teach them how to play like the warriors. No reason they cannot constantly move without the ball like the warriors do.
Lebron is going to do what he wants, and I don’t think there is a guru out there who can get KI to do anything but what he does. But Mark Jackson will take a crack at it…
They had a guy who was a pretty good offensive coach. Too bad it didn’t work out…
EXACTLYYYY..dont know why we cant have actually plays and player movement which gives us open and easy looks throughout the game and not just out of timeouts or when the shotclock is low
The Cavs had an offensive guru. They didn’t want to listen to him from day one so he had to put in an offense that wasn’t his style.
This game is really making me worry for the podcast…/s
maybe Lebron isn’t right for these Cavs maybe they need a fresh start and not worry about him anymore….its clear his mental make up just doesn’t fit here…Warriors aren’t THAT good…they are running a basic offense and just executing
^^This is an insane comment
Wow. Blowout. Irving ..lebron.. Love hurt as usual..cavs have no fight… The players have a lot of $$. But no fight… Shameful
We just look awful. Just awful.
Time to go full Kaun on them…
Why am I staying up this late at night? To watch this embarassing effort?
Im saying this same thing, dreading going to work and hearing my coworker who is a Curry fan. Cavs just embarrassing me so far.
so are you actually in Greece? I can almost relate…on vacation in London and questioning why I’m sacrificing my morning tomorrow…
so should we bench the starters in the 3rd?
This one is over….
The pull-up three by james almost seems like he has already counted this game is over. What are you doing dude?!! Play smarter for godsake.
You get the sense that Lue and his staff basically bought into the hype that the only reason they lost to the Dubs last season was because they didn’t have Kyrie and Love, and would walk to a Finals win this year. I am speechless that they came in complacent.
Green has 11 field goals made, Cavs have 23, almost half as much as us…just sad.
Maybe when the starters die of exhaustion the bench will come in and play a little bit more respectably?
Mixed in among LeBron’s turnovers was this…
https://vine.co/v/iYValgZ7g6J
Figures Bray is destroying the Cavs this game…
Unless this one radically changes, you’d better believe the Warriors are going to go ultra hard game three, and try to sweep…
Lebron 8TO. Wow. What is he doing
What sucks about this game is that the Cavs are trying really hard and the Warriors are just going thru the motions. I’m afraid this game will end up really ugly.
Cavs aren’t trying hard…sans RJ….this team’s mental make up is broken by their coach who is clueless and trusts no one but Lebron and Kyrie
Lebron pulling 2010 here…sad
Lue totally awful this game. Gotta get LeBron out and try to get back in with your bench. No way you can win if your main guys are exhausted at the end.
James going for that quadrouple double
Seriously, LeBron?
No effort by James to get that loose ball
Lebron going into 4 players and want to score…sigh…and I hate when Draymon scores, my gosh
Wonder if Leb is going to break the finals TO record?
WHY CANT WE IMPOSE OUR WILL AGAINST THEM WHY F@CKING WHY??
They are better. They are better than everyone this year.
We’ve done everything we could, why can’t we be the best even for a year? Man, I’m getting crushed right now.
No. The Cavs think they’re better. And that’s all that matters.
Terrible call there. Iggy never gets called for that strip when he’s on D.
This grind-it-out, ISO ball has been 0-6 for us against GS since last year’s finals. And the faster-paced, ball-sharing, basket-attacking, live-and-die by the 3 offense has led us 12-2 ths year. Please give a sound reason why did we abandoned that? Why can’t they see that it isn’t effective against GS?
RJ again. Wow.
https://vine.co/v/iYVWHYhuuaw
Unless the cavs can institute an actual offense in two days I don’t really see how they can beat this team, at all, for a single game in this series.
Are you kidding me with that call? Klay travels every GD time he touches the ball.
Game 1 and 2 (so far) is everything I can’t stand about Cavs basketball. I guess they aren’t “turning it up” once they get to the Finals. All the bad habits are coming back with a vengeance.
GS pulling away like in game one with Curry on the bench. Our offense is offensive. I muted the sound as it’s easier to take with just the video.
LeBron’s effort from play to play is not championship level: giving up on D, not boxing out, setlting for bad shots. He has not played well.
Terrible after great 2nd quarter. Seven turnovers
Warriors with a simple D Green cut get and easy score and the Cavs struggling to just try to run a simply post up.
geez JR plays tight defense and TO occurs….unbelievable! why aren’t rest of Cavs doing this??
Lebron is terrible . 6TO. Well, cavs less RJ is stinking the court.
Cavs defense is a JOKE.. another layup for GSW
Iggy has Lebron’s number…can’t do much against him one on one
I keep watching because I KNOW we have a chance to come back.
If only they changed their mentality, their offensive game plan, their lineups…
Cavs get very few open looks, even when they move the ball…
3 made 3’s for Cavs, Warriors at 10… thats +21 . We are +9 at the line, and thats about the game right there (12 points)
Don’t see much of an adjustment by Lue and the team.